It appears that the AMD AIB-partners have finally started to come up with custom RX Vega graphics cards and Gigabyte has just announced its own custom RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56 graphics cards, with a custom PCB and Windforce 2X cooler.

Although only the RX VEGA 64 GAMING OC 8G is listed on Gigabyte's website, it appears that both the custom RX Vega 64 and the custom RX Vega 56 from Gigabyte will share the design. Speaking of the design, Gigabyte went all-in with a custom-design PCB with 12+1-phase VRM, drawing power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, ultra durable design with high-grade chokes and capacitors, and a factory-overclock which puts the GPU base clock at 1276MHz and the GPU Boost clock at 1560MHz (1247/1546MHz reference).

In order to keep those power-hungry Vega GPUs well cooled, Gigabyte has decided to use a version of its Windforce 2X cooler with two 100mm fans which spin in opposite directions, split heatsink with angular fin design, copper heatpipes in direct contact with the GPU, and a special backplate with a heatpipe and copper block behind the GPU.

Gigabyte also slightly changed the display output configuration, leaving it with three HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs and marketing an ability to run up to six monitors at the same time.

Unfortunately, we do not have any details regarding a custom version of Gigabyte's RX Vega 56 but hopefully, that one will show up soon as well and we guess it could be based on a similar design. Gigabyte did not reveal any details regarding the price or the availability date but judging by other partners, these should show up on retail/e-tail shelves before Christmas.

Gigabyte has announced its new Radeon R9 Fury custom graphics card that will feature a well known triple-slot, triple-fan WindForce 3X cooler.

Spotted by Techpowerup.com, the new Gigabyte Radeon R9 Fury WindForce is based on what appears to be a fully-custom design, as it does not feature a short PCB used on reference Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards. It also comes with a slight factory-overclock, pushing the GPU up to 1010MHz while 4GB of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) remained at reference 500MHz.

In order to accommodate the oversized triple-fan WindForce 3X cooler, Gigabyte had to use a custom longer PCB, but, unfortunately, this also means that the new graphics card takes three slots. The new graphics card need two 8-pin PCI-Express power and features HDMI, DVI and three DisplayPort outputs. Based on AMD's Fiji GPU, the Radeon R9 Fury packs 3584 Stream Processors, 224 TMUs and 64 ROPs and comes with the same 4GB of HMB paired up with a 4096-bit memory interface.

Gigabyte did not reveal any details regarding the price or the availability date but we are sure we will see it in retail/e-tail shops soon as, according to some reports, AMD has finally managed to overcome supply issues.

Gigabyte’s GTX 960 G1 Gaming is one of the best, if not the best GTX 960 graphics card on the market, although it does not shine in terms of value.

Today we’ll be taking a closer look at the recently introduced Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming graphics card (GV-N960G1 GAMING-2GD) with the company’s trademark Windforce triple-fan cooler. This is Nvidia’s first mainstream graphics card based on the new and extremely power-efficient Maxwell architecture.The GTX 960 graphics card is based on brand new silicon codenamed GM206. You can think about the GTX 960 as a replacement for outgoing GTX 660 and GTX 760 cards.

Nvidia launched the Geforce GTX 960 describing it as a “sweet spot” graphics card. Traditionally Nvidia’s “sweet spot” cards are 60-series models such as the GTX 460, 560, 660, 760 and so on. They tend to offer a good price/performance ratio and the current generation can run most titles at 1080p with high detail settings. The suggested MSRP for the GTX 960 is 200€.

The G1 Gaming card looks more like a high-end graphics card, and we really like the design.

The metal frame looks really nice and the backplate adds much to the good overall image of the G1 Gaming card.The GTX 960 G1 Gaming is a factory overclocked card with bumped up GPU frequencies, yet thanks to the Windforce cooler it is supposed to be cooler and quieter than the reference card.

The GTX 960 G1 Gaming works at base clock of 1241MHz, while the reference GPU base clock is 1126MHz. Nvidia's GPU Boost 2.0 takes the average GPU clock to 1178MHz for the reference GPU and to 1304MHz for the G1 Gaming card. Note that the actual Boost clock will vary from game-to-game depending on system conditions, and one of the most interesting things with the G1 Gaming is that Gigabyte configured the BIOS to provide high Boost clocks.

To fulfill consumer’s needs, Gigabyte also showed off two other SKUs which are the WF2OC (1216 MHz base /1279 MHz boost) and IXOC (1165 MHz base /1228 MHz boost). The G1 Gaming comes with great performance and a cooling solution for enthusiasts, while the WF2OC is better for value-minded consumers.

The IXOC card is special by virtue of its short PCB, and this could be a selling point for HTPC builders. The WF2OC is showed on the image above, and below you can see the IXOC card. The MSRP of the GTX 960 G1 is €230, the Windforce OC is priced at €212, while the ITX version costs €195 in Germany.

The reference GTX 960 has a TDP of 120W, while the G1 Gaming goes up to 160W, but the 6-phase design ensures higher, solid boost clocks, while maintaining low temperatures. Two 6-pin power connectors provide additional power in case the user want to overclock the GPU even further. The reference GTX 960 card uses only one 6-pin power connector.

Gigabyte did not change the memory clock. The GTX 960 G1 Gaming features 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1752MHz (7010MHz effective), providing up to 112.16GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth.

The GM206 GPU

The GM206 GPU used in the GeForce GTX 960 features all the key architectural innovations first introduced in the GeForce GTX 980. Maxwell GPUs feature a new SM design that’s been tailored to improve efficiency.

The Maxwell SMM is partitioned into four distinct 32-CUDA core processing blocks (128 CUDA cores total per SM), each with its own dedicated resources for scheduling and instruction buffering. By giving each processing block its own dedicated resources for instruction scheduling and dispatch, Nvidia is able to keep the GPU’s CUDA cores fully utilized more often, improving workload efficiency and reducing the amount of power that usually goes to waste.

To improve the efficiency of the GPU’s onboard caches, Nvidia has also made a number of changes to the cache hierarchy in Maxwell. Each of GM206’s SMM units features its own dedicated 96KB shared memory, while the L1/texture caching functions are combined into a 24KB pool of memory per pair of processing blocks (48KB per SMM). Previous generation Kepler GPUs had a smaller 64KB shared memory function that was also shared as L1 cache.

As a result of these changes, each GM206 CUDA core is able to deliver roughly 1.4x more performance per core compared to a GK106 Kepler CUDA core (the direct predecessor of GM206), and 2x the performance per watt.

The memory subsystem of GM206 has also been revamped. Nvidia’s third-generation delta color compression engine offers new modes for color compression, allowing the GPU to use its available memory bandwidth more effectively. When combined with the aforementioned caching improvements in the Maxwell SM, GM206 uses roughly 25% fewer bytes per frame compared to Kepler GPUs. This means that from the perspective of the GPU core, a Kepler-style memory system running at 9.3Gbps would provide effective bandwidth similar to the bandwidth that Maxwell’s enhanced memory system provides.

The memory subsystem of GeForce GTX 960 consists of two 64-bit memory controllers (128-bit) with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The 128-bit, 7Gbps memory interface is able to effectively provide slightly more bandwidth than its direct predecessor (148.8GB/sec effective in GTX 960 vs 144.2GB/sec in GTX 660).

The Packaging

The rear of the box clearly indicates that the card features the Windforce cooler with three fans and FlexDisplay, a unique display output solution.

Gigabyte decided to add a bit of value to the GTX 960 with a custom design and generous factory overclock.

It is important to note that Gigabyte sells two additional custom designed GTX 960 cards, with different coolers, as described earlier. The Windforce triple-fan cooler on the GTX 960 G1 Gaming uses metal shroud which looks quite good. The card is protected by a nylon, which must be removed.

The backplate adds to the overkill look of the card. The G1 Gaming card is 30cm long and 11.5cm tall. The GeForce GTX 960 reference board measures 9.5in or 22cm in length.

A 6+6 pin power connector setup is used on the GTX 980 and GTX 970, but the reference GTX 960 requires only one 6-pin power connector. Gigabyte provides more juice to the GTX 960 G1 Gaming by using two 6-pin power connectors and a 6+2 power phase design. The GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti and Titan have a TDP of 250W, compared to the GTX 980 with a 165W TDP, GTX 970 with a 145W TDP and GTX 960 with 120W.

The GTX 960 is built for standard dual-SLI, as it features just one SLI connector. The fact that this is a dual-slot design also helps.

The GTX 960 G1 Gaming features one standard HDMI connector (2.0 compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support), two DVI ports, and three standard DisplayPort outs, a unique video-output configuration under marketing name “FlexDisplay”. The TMDS switch on the G1 Gaming card allows you to run 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DP or 3x DP, 1x DVI and 1x HDMI at the same time (the reference card supports up to four simultaneous displays).

Due to the aforementioned unique output configuration, the I/O bracket cannot serve as an exhaust vent, there’s simply no place left for an exhaust grille.

Like the GeForce GTX 980, the GeForce GTX 960 has a new display engine capable of supporting resolutions up to 5K (including support for up to four 4K MST displays). Additionally, the GM206 features support for H.265 (HEVC) encoding and decoding.

Two LED indicators are placed on the top to signalize whether the fans are spinning or not. The Windforce logo is also lit up, but it stays turned on all the time.

The GTX 960 G1 Gaming has 2GB of memory, and two of four memory modules are placed on the back side of the PCB.

The Samsung chips, (model K4G41325FC-HC28 which is also used on the GTX 970 G1 Gaming) are specified to run at 1750 MHz (7000 MHz GDDR5 effective). Memory chips and voltage regulation circuits are in direct contact with the cooler.

Gigabyte used long heatpipes for maximum heat transfer, and the relatively small GM206 GPU is in direct contact with the heatpipes.

Gaming results

Thermals and Noise

In idle, the card’s fans are switched off, making the card silent. Gigabyte implemented Nvidia’s new feature Fan Stop Mode on the G1 Gaming card:

Our measurements can confirm that in idle the GPU temperature of the G1 Gaming stays below 36 degrees Celsius, and the card is totally silent. Two LED indicators are placed on the top to signalize of whether the fans are spinning or not.

The huge heatsink with three fans is able to keep the temperature below 69 degree Celsius, and the cooler stays very silent (note how G1 Gaming works at very high Boost clock of 1455MHz) . However, all GTX 960 card we saw until now are more or less silent during load. The G1 Gaming really shows what it’s made of once you overclock it and realize that it is still very quiet.

Overclocking

The Geforce GTX 960 has a fair amount of overclocking headroom, so even if you choose a reference card you should get good overclocking results.

The reference card’s base clock frequency is 1126MHz with a boost clock of 1178MHz. However, the Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming base clock frequency is 1241MHz, with an advertised Boost clock of 1304MHz+. Although we could increase the base GPU clock by just 50MHz (bear in mind that it is already factory overclocked by 114MHz), we still managed to record Boost clocks in excess of 1500MHz. One of the most interesting things with the G1 Gaming is that Gigabyte configured the BIOS to provide high Boost clocks. Thank to this, the G1 Gaming delivers better results than other GTX 960 cards at the same base clock.

The memory is not factory overclocked, what is really a shame. Our memory overclock yielded good results. We increased the clock by 500MHz (effectively 2000MHz) with no adverse effects. All together we gained 7 to 10 percent performance increase in games.

Power Consumption

The reference GTX 960 has a TDP of 120W while the G1 Gaming goes up to 140-160W, but the 6-PWM design ensures higher, solid boost clocks while maintaining stability.

Despite the overclock, the GTX 960 G1 Gaming is a very power-efficient graphics card. Two 6-pin power connectors provide additional power in case the user wants to overclock the GPU even further. The reference GTX 960 card uses only one 6-pin power connector and once again we must conclude that Nvidia’s Maxwell cards offer truly exceptional efficiency which we did not expect from 28nm GPUs.

Conclusion

Gigabyte’s GTX 960 G1 Gaming is one of the best, if not the best GTX 960 graphics card on the market. It uses high-quality components, a six-phase power design and a great 300W capacity cooler. By looking at the G1 Gaming you would hardly assume it belongs to the GTX 960 series. The G1 Gaming uses two 6-pin power connectors, creating the illusion of a high-end graphics card. The Maxwell GPU is extremely power efficient and even though this is a factory overclocked card, it only needs two 6-pin power connectors to keep going and support the extreme clocks.

Nvidia could have made the GTX 960 faster with a wider memory bus and more than 2GB memory, but it has other products to cover these market segments. In any case the GTX 960 is a great gaming card for gamers who tend to use 1080p resolution with cranked up visual effects. Some less demanding games can be played at 4K resolution, or 1600p. When playing MOBA games like League of Legends, you can also use DSR tech to render the frames at 4K and down-sample them to 1080p for a better visual experience.

The Gigabyte GTX 960 G1 Gaming 2GB graphics card comes with a 114MHz factory overclock that raises the GPU base frequency from 1127MHz to 1241MHz. A number of factory-overlocked GTX 960 cards ship with even higher clocks, but the G1 stands out with high Boost clocks. They are made possible thanks to BIOS optimization, excellent cooling and a good power system. Our overlocking efforts did not yield very good results in terms of high GPU-Base clock, but the Boost clocks crossed the 1550MHz mark. Aside from the relatively high price, there is another thing we did not like – the stock clocked memory. Should you choose to buy the G1, we suggest you increase the memory clock.

We really liked the G1 Gaming, but we must admit it is a little bit overpriced. For the extraordinary design of the G1 Gaming you have to pay a €35 premium over Gigabyte’s card, GTX 960 Mini, which is currently the cheapest available GTX 960 in Europe with a price tag of €193. In this price category €35 makes a big difference, but this brings you silence all the time, faster performance with high Boost clocks out of the box, and of course great looks.

If you are interested in Nvidia’s GTX 960, we can recommend the GTX 960 G1 Gaming, although it does not shine in terms of value.

The guys from Expreview.com managed to get their hands on custom Geforce GTX 670 graphics card from Gigabyte. The new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X will feature custom PCB paired up with Gigabyte's well known Windforce 2X cooler that we had a chance to check out in our Gigabyte HD 7850 OC review.

According to details, the new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X features custom design compact PCB that features Gigabyte Ultra Durable VGA features like 2-oz copper PCB, Japanese solid-state capacitors, ferrite core chokes, as well as Gigabyte's pretty good Windforce 2X cooler with two 8mm copper heatpipes and two 100mm fans. The PCB is in Gigabyte's trademark blue and features 4+2 phase VRM design and needs two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors.

The new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X will hit retail/e-tail in two versions, reference clocked and OC Edition. The OC Edition is clocked at 941MHz for base and 1019MHz for boost GPU clock while 2GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 6008MHz. The base GPU clock on the OC Edition is a decent OC from reference 914MHz.

Due to custom PCB and Windforce 2X cooler, new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X cards are expected to retail at much lower price than the Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3X ones.

Gigabyte has been busy as of late improving its existing graphics card coolers and designing new ones. Our today’s guest is the company’s HD 7850 OC graphics card, notable for Gigabyte’s WindForce 2x cooler, which promises silence even when the card is working hard. That Gigabyte is ready for non-conventional designs is clear from its GTX 680 Super Overclock card, which comes with five fans and nine heatpipes, but more on that on another occasion.

The card’s name, HD 7850 OC Windforce 2x, says it’s a factory overclocked card. The GPU has been overclocked by 115MHz but the memory was unfortunately left at reference 1200MHz (4800MHz GDDR5). We’ve noticed that many overclocked AMD and Nvidia cards come with overclocked GPUs but reference memory clocks. We’d much rather see overclocked memory because users who buy overclocked cards usually don’t want to mess with any further overclocking, i.e. want their pet juiced out straight out of the box, and quite understandably so.

Gigabyte HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x is on the picture below.

We’re sure you want to know more about WindForce, but before we move onto that part, let us say something about the HD 7850 first.

HD 7850 as well as HD 7870 is equiped with 2GB of memory on a 256-bit memory interface, which will be of much use to gamers running 1920x1080.Compared to Pitcairn XT (HD 7870), Pitcairn Pro comes with lesss shaders (1024 compared to XT’s 1280), and less texture units (64 compared to XT’s 80). Both GPUs come with 256-bit memory interface and 30 ROPs each. HD 7850 launched priced at $249, while HD 7870 cost $349. AMD set the reference clocks for Pitcairn XT at 1000MHz and Pitcairn Pro to 860MHz.

The factory overclock is the culprit for higher GPU temperatures, but the card comes with powerful WindForce 2x cooler, a cooler with two 10cm fans.Each fan makes an airflow of 30.5 CFM. The fans exceed the PCB boundaries but in this case it’s a good thing since they cool heatpipes that stick out beyond the PCB. The heatpipes are in direct contact with the GPU. One of the secrets to quality cooling is that the fans and the heatsink are angled. You can’t tell this at a glance, but once you look at the card from the side, you’ll see for yourself. The angle lowers the turbulence between the two fans. Although the plastic frame seems a bit shaky, it’s actually quite stable. By using low profile fans, Gigabyte made sure that the cooler does not exceed two slots. HD 7850 OC WindForce is about 227mm long and about 120mm tall.

Both fans are on the same power cable and you can manage RPM via any standard tool, including AMD Overdrive. Note however that Auto regulation worked just fine, so we just left it as it is. The card uses 4-phase VRM design, with GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable 2 combination of Solid State Capacitors, Ferrite Core chokesandlow RDS(on) MOSFETs.

Gigabyte 7850 TwinForce card is equipped with 2048MB GDDR5 memory. The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix (model number H5GQ2H24MFA-T2C). They are specified to run at 1250MHz (effective 5000MHz). The chips are cooled by fan air only.

The reference design provides two mini DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, HDMI and a single dual-link DVI out, and the seme setup is used on Gigabythe's card. HDMI 1.4a provides HD audio and supportfor Blu-ray 3D movies. It will simultaneously support three displays, although the third display must be connected via DisplayPort.You may combine the Gigabyte's 7850 TwinForce card with another HD 7850 card from any vendor in CrossFire. Flexible CrossFire bridge helps with reaching the connectors, even though the plastic shroud is in the way.

The card is powered via one 6-pin power connector, which is easily accessible thanks to the cutout in the heatsink.

Gigabyte HD 7850 OC TwinForce 2x graphics card is a factory overclocked card, whose GPU was boosted by 115MHz but the memory left at reference 1200MHz (4800MHz GDDR5). We managed to overclock the GPU higher, to 1025MHz.

We expected a better overclock since the cooler does its job great. GPU temperatures didn’t exceed 56°C at factory clocks, while our overclocking increased them by a single degree Celsius. We left the fan in AUTO mode durin our overclocking because thermals were good and the fan quiet. Increasing the RPM manually didn’t provide for a better overclocking score.

We left the memory at 1200MHz because even the slightest boost of 50MHz caused our system to freeze. In fact, not even a system restart managed to help on few occasions, and we had to resort to throwing in another card and clearing the drivers.

As far as noise goes, fans are inaudible. We didn’t hear them until they exceeded 70%RPM (which was never the case in AUTO mode). When the fans exceed 70%RPM, you’ll hear a very faint buzzing noise. We’re not sure what’s the cause, but it’s most likely the fan vibration causing parts of the heatsink to vibrate as well. Note however that it’s far from loud – in fact, you won’t hear it away from the computer and pretty much never in AUTO fan mode.

Gigabyte HD 7850 TwinForce 2x’s consumption was quite good. Our rig drew up to 240W, which is less than some slower cards from earlier generation. Although we’re looking at a factory overclocked card, Gigabyte made sure that the TDP doesn’t go over 130W.

Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x (GV-R785OC-2GD) graphics card surprised us with just how quiet it is, whether it’s idle or working hard. Although it’s a graphics card with a 115MHz GPU overclock, WindForce 2x has no trouble keeping it cool and temperature didn’t go over 56°C.

Overclocking results are below average. We could overclock the GPU only up to 1025MHz, while the memory started misbehaving after only 50MHz extra.

Once the fan is sped up over 70%RPM, you’ll hear a strange noise from teh fan, as if the fan occasionally touches some part of the heatsink, but we couldn’t really tell exactly. When running in AUTO mode, the fan never hits 70%RPM, so it will always stay quiet.

Despite such OC results, we really think Gigabyte’s HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x deserved to get our award, since it’s overclocked but silent. The GPU was overclocked from reference 860MHz to 975MHz while the WindForce 2x cooler makes sure to keep it cool. Performance is excellent for gaming at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080.

Gigabyte’s card is some €10 pricier than the most affordable HD 7850, which is definitely justified. So, if you’re looking for an overclocked card with quiet cooling, there’s no reason to overlook Gigabyte’s HD 7850 OC WindForce 2x.

Custom GTX 680 cards are slowly starting to appear and it is no wonder that Gigabyte decided to make custom PCB, slap its Windforce 3X cooler and roll out the Gigabyte GTX 680 OC Windforce 3X.

VR-Zone managed to get their hands on one and do a quick preview with nice full monty photo session of the PCB and the triple-fan Windforce 3X cooler. As far as the PCB is concerned, it is obvious that we are looking at custom blue PCB that ditches Nvidia's stacked dual 6-pin PCI-Express power design and goes for 8+6-pin placed next to each other. The 8+6-pin design should provide additional overclocking headroom and stability to 5-phase VRM design (4-phase on reference).

The new Gigabyte GTX 680 OC Windforce 3X is set to work at 1071MHz base and 1124MHz boost clock, a mere 50MHz more than reference card, but we guess that leaves more overclocking headroom. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory are set to wrok at 1502MHz (6.0GHz effective) and paired up with a 256-bit memory interface. As noted, Gigabyte paired this card with its Windforce 3X cooler that features a rather hefty direct touch copper heatpipe heatsink cooled by three 80mm PWM fans.

In addition to reference GTX 460 cards announced yesterday, Gigabyte has also prepared a WindForce series card based on the same GPU. Featuring a non-reference dual slot cooler, these GTX 460 cards will also be available as a 768 and 1024MB version and will feature a factory overclock.

The new WindForce cards will work at 715MHz for the GPU, 1430MHz for those 336 CUDA cores and 3600MHz for either 768 or 1024MB of GDDR5 memory. It also features Gigabyte's 2oz copper PCB, Japanases solid capacitors, Low RDS mosfet and Ferrite/Metal core chokes as well as only Samsung and Hynix memory chips.

The new WindForce cooler features two pure copper heatpipes connected to a large heatsink which is then cooled by a dual quiet PWM Windforce fans that have anti-turbulence inclined-fin. The Windforce cooler should provide up to 11 percent better cooling.